Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo was recently revealed to be a playable character in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. It feels bizarre to have a real life person being playable in a fighting game with fictional characters, but at least this idea was teased a few months back to give fighting game fans time to mentally prepare for this announcement.
Just a week after Ronaldo was revealed as a fighter in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, SNK then proceeded to unveil that Salvatore Ganacci was also playable, seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that SNK has already announced plans to add Street Fighter 6’s Ken and Chun-Li to Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves as DLC later down the road, the additions of these real life characters as guests promotes a completely different feeling.
Needless to say, Jmcrofts recently released a video talking about the addition of these sort of guest characters. Essentially, the video poses the question “Are fighting game guest characters getting out of control?”
It can easily be argued that Cristiano Ronaldo and Salvatore Ganacci are taking up slots that could’ve been devoted to characters that are actually part of the Fatal Fury games. To players that aren’t necessarily familiar with these two famous individuals, they do ultimately feel like a waste.
Of course, we already have some people that are unhappy with other guest appearances like how Terry Bogard and Mai Shiarnui showed up in Street Fighter 6’s Season 2 lineup. Even outside of these whacky additions, there are those that have grown tired of the guest character formula for fighting games.
It’s an interesting topic that seems to be becoming more relevant as many fighting game series grow older. On the other hand, it’s also becoming more difficult to predict who joins in any given fighting game, which can lead to funny reactions.
Check it all out below:
Source: Event Hubs
